Meanwhile, MPGe checks in at a disappointing 112 combined. The breakdown is 125 MPGe city and 100 MPGe highway. We say these figures disappoint because they are actually lower than the 24-kWh LEAF from 2015 and 2016. Yes, a bigger, heavier battery should hurt efficiency, but we had figured gains were made elsewhere to offset this. Looks like that wasn’t the case.

LEAF EPA Ratings

Energy consumption for all of the LEAFs above are identical too at 30 kWh per 100 miles.

Prior to learning that the new LEAF wouldn’t get the bigger 60-kWh battery until 2019, we lumped it in as a competitor to the Chevy Bolt and Tesla Model 3, but with its tiny 40-kWh battery, it no longer competes against those two vehicles, at least not until next year with the higher capacity battery arrives. However, for efficiency comparison purposes, here’s a look at those three vehicles, as rated by the EPA:

EPA Ratings Of 2018 LEAF, Bolt And Tesla Model 3

As you can see, the LEAF is the least efficient of the lot, consuming 30 kWh per 100 miles, compared to the Bolt’s 28 and the Model 3’s 26. And in the MPGe category, the new 2018 LEAF fares the worse of the 3 too.

If Nissan could up the LEAF’s efficiency, a range bump would come too. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem as though Nissan is all that focused on the efficiency side of the equation.

for efficiency the best car is the Hyundai Ioniq , even with just 28kwh battery have a real world range much better than the 30 kwh Leaf.
Another car to compare to the LEaf is the Reanult Zoe with the 41 kwh battery and a real world range close to the Bolt ev.

– par for the IEV comment section course 🙂
At least someone with an actual firsthand experience (@Arpe) could correct one of the errors.

That said, yes 2018 Leaf efficiency is disappointing, in particular – somehow not noticed in the story – the gap between city and highway MPGe, which is much larger than for the Bolt and Model 3.

However, the hope/expectation is that Nissan is going for market volume and ROI with this one, not for Wow specs. And globally, not just in the US. We’ve all seen far crappier ICE cars get sold by the million, while the Volt and Bolt, both true engineering wonder (esp. considering its timing and who made it), struggle to get mainstream acceptance, with GM failing to realize where their best markets and market segments might be.

Btw, to the author: energy consumption and MPGe are basically just reciprocals to each other (times a numerical factor), so no need to emphasize how both look worse. They are essentially the same piece of information.

I like the i3 EV and i3 REx, but I cringe to think of the cost of maintenance and repair after the warranty is over, and of depreciation during time of ownership.

I bought a used 2012 Volt Premier, 34k miles, cherry condition summer of 2016, for $14k. I anticipate that repairs, if necessary, will be far more affordable than for a BMW. Purchase price is obviously much lower, so depreciation won’t be as bad. And I get 4 real doors.

I’m sure I’d enjoy the Beemer, but I’m not willing to pay the price and costs. Love my Volt, though sometimes I do wish it were a bit quicker and tighter handling. It’s been very reliable, only problem so far was a charging cord repair. I haven’t even had to change the oil in it yet, lol.

The depreciation is not going to be pretty, and I’d be at least somewhat concerned about what happens when BMW (likely) discontinues the i3 entirely. How soon will the single manufacturer of those odd size tires decide to drop them from production?

That would be true for the indoctrinatated knowledgeable current EV owners, but first time EV shoppers, may be more susceptible to purchasing/leasing a comprised TMS EV battery pack. Tesla needs to get through their backlog, of 400k + Model 3 preorders, and get availablity out to the masses.

I wouldn’t go by anything other than EPA range. Anything else is comparing apples to oranges. I can probably get 100 miles out of my e-Golf too, maybe even a bit more. All it takes is driving more conservatively. Simply dropping down to 55 mph you can stretch your range by probably 25% (just top of my head estimation).

So, by that same token you can probably get 175-180 out of the Leaf, and probably somewhere near 300 out of the Bolt. You can easily exceed the EPA on all these EVs in ideal conditions if you know what you’re doing.

“The ZOE has a real world range compared to Bolt?? Check the numbers again.”

Yeah, for the Zoe he’s probably talking about the NEDC (European test cycle) range numbers, which are almost always pretty far away from real-world numbers. The EPA’s rating system seems to be pretty close in most cases for EVs… but unfortunately still not that close for gasmobiles.

“NEDC” and “real-world” should never appear in the same sentence. Kinda like “president” and “Trump”. 😉

Why would you compare the Ioniq with the 2017 Leaf? Not only is the old Leaf obsolete, but Hyundai only shipped a mere 432 to the US in 2017.

Efficiency alone is of low priority for EVs, and it’s really only important as a means to get more range. Since the current Leaf has a lot more range in the end, the Ioniq’s efficiency doesn’t mean much aside from saving you $40-100 per year.

in some other market the Ioniq sold as the Leaf or more , also the Ioniq as real world range is in between the 30kwh Leaf and the 40 kwh Leaf but thanks to the better efficiency is faster at charging both at the DC and the DC charging point ( Ioniq and leaf have both a 6kw charger but the same power on the Ioniw allows you to do more range with the same charging time)

It is a useful figure because it allows people coming from the ICE world and buying their first EV an easy way to compare efficiency. It also shows them how much more efficient an EV is compared to an ICE vehicle. I agree it is am off measurement but the reason for using it is sound. Once Evs are the norm I am sure MPGe will be replaced. I personally prefer miles per kWh but kWh per 100 miles works as well.

I feel I should also protest the use of the metric kWh as a unit electrical energy. Any really patriotic American should spit on the quasi-socialist metric kWh and use BTUs instead. Or ft-lbs. Or Horsepower-hours. Any of those would be fine.

Here’s a challenge: New Leaf has a 106 million foot-pound battery and uses 1.27 billion BTUs per mile. Have fun solving for the range.

kWh/mile is yet another silly non-standard unit reminding of British Empire. So you may be happy, it is completely different from what the rest of the world uses and International system of units (SI) doesn’t want to to anything with it 😉

SI unit for power is Watt (J/s), or kg⋅m2⋅s−3. Distance is not needed for fixed test cycle.

Heat must be measured in terms of teslas, which will be a bit awkward since that’s a unit of magnetic field strength, but we must reject any metrics based on English/British scientists such as Newton or Joule! Or better yet, let’s invent our own unit for heat and call it the edison.

Furthermore, I insist we Make America Great Again by expressing all speeds in terms of furlongs per fortnight.

(And don’t try to tell me furlongs or fortnights are British units. That’s just fake news!)

MPGe is the complete opposite of a useful number. MPG itself is already a misleading metric. The relative value of each mile improvement declines exponentially as MPG rises. An improvement from 10 to 11 MPG, saves the same fuel as an improvement from 16.5 to 20, or from 33 to 50 MPG. Low MPG vehicles use substantially more fuel than high MPG vehicles.

MPG is bad enough as a metric, but MPGe makes it worse by confusing electricity usage with petroleum usage under the guise of an efficiency measure. Most of the social reasons we care about efficiency in petroleum-fueled vehicles simply do not exist for electrically-driven vehicles or exist at massively lower levels.

For petroleum combustion vehicles, increased efficiency directly reduces emissions responsible for increased health costs and death. It reduces the economic and political influence of foreign powers. It reduces capital outflows. Fuel economy requirements associated with MPG were created to address these many social issues.

These issues are generally much lower or non-existent for electrically driven products. Virtually the only reason to care about efficiency in an EV powered by wind, solar, hydro or sustainable biofuels is the vehicle’s usability. And the mere existence of the EV as a dispatchable load helps enable increased the amounts of variable renewables on the grid.

An efficiency improvement in petroleum combustion therefore delivers significantly more social value than an equivalent efficiency improvement in an EV. Reporting the efficiency differences between these two technologies by converting electricity into gallons per the MPGe metric specifically omits those massive differences. It instead creates a false equivalence in the actual value of efficiency for each technology.

The number MPGe provides is therefore extremely misleading. The social value difference between the best and worst EVs is is zero on an MPG scale.

We know why some people came up with MPGe, but it’s still a completely idiotic concept and unit. The fact the EPA publishes it doesn’t mean it has to be referenced here. Instead, much more relevant would be giving the BEV’s efficiency in tabular form, for various combinations of temps. and speeds.

No, I think that if the government had put stickers on the Model T using “BHDe” (Bales of Hay per Day equivalent), to spoonfeed fuel efficiency ratings to horse-and-buggy drivers, then we’d still be using that stupid BHDe metric today to measure the fuel efficiency of gasmobiles.

The U.S. of A. is, after all, the only sizable country in the entire world which still isn’t using the metric system as its official standard.

“I personally prefer miles per kWh but kWh per 100 miles works as well.”

And since the EPA’s Monterey sticker includes a “__ kWh/100 mi” rating, then shouldn’t we EV advocates be using that instead of the nonsensical “MPGe” rating? It’s just my opinion of course, but it seems to me the “MPGe” label is an effort to convince would-be EV buyers that EVs are just gasmobiles which use a special kind of fuel.

I think we EV advocates should celebrate the differences between PEVs and gasmobiles, not try to minimize them!

You are forgetting about charging losses. Also, the advertised battery size is 40kWh, but we don’t know how much of that is usable. The original Leaf had a “24kWh” battery, but you could only use 21kWh. The Bolt has a “60kWh” battery, and you can seemingly use 60kWh. So the meaning of that number varies widely.

It’s not a fudge factor, nor unique to the Leaf. The EPA efficiency tells you how far you can drive based on the amount of energy you pull from the wall, in other words, the energy you pay for. So if you have a very efficient car with a poor charger, it could have the same MPGe rating as a less efficient car with a top-of-the-line charger.

Basically MPGe lets you compute cost-per-mile. It does not tell you how far you can drive based on the battery size.

Brian, I was under the impression that Charging Losses were included in the MPGE figure, in that the efficiency comparison starts where the gasoline pump nozzle enters the tank and analogously the efficiency is compared from the start of the wallbox connector, therefore, charging/discharging losses are included since they take the power consumption from the revenue meter on the side of the house, not from the listed battery capacity alone.

You shouldn’t assume a larger battery pack will have the same ratio between full capacity and usable capacity as a smaller pack. Larger packs get cycled fewer times, don’t wear out as fast, and don’t need as large a buffer to allow for aging.

A better rule of thumb would be to assume the larger pack has the same number of kWh reserve capacity as the smaller pack. In fact it may be even a bit less, but assuming the same number of kWh will likely put you closer to the true value.

A paltry 77% charging efficiency would suggest something is wrong somewhere. More likely something wrong with your premises or math than something wrong with the charger.

Meh, it depends what you’ve grown up with, if course. A Pascal is equal to one Newton per square metre, or roughly the weight of 100g. So 101kPa is equal to roughly 10 tonnes resting on a square metre surface. Picture column of water three stories high. I sort of grew up with both systems, but most of my friends in Germany can’t figure out feet and inches half as well as they can figure out a metre. For one thing feet are all different sizes! And you have to have pretty chunky thumbs for the inch thing to work. And don’t get me started on horses. I live in a city, how the hell should I know how much work a horse can do? I’ve got zero feel for that.

“Also, Watts are already a metric unit, so the whole mix and match thing with Wh/mi is kind of silly. But that is a different can of worms.”

While I completely agree that it would be best if everyone would simply start using the metric system for everything (or nearly*), so long as U.S. speed limit signs read “MPH” and not “KPH”, and highways have mile markers rather than km markers, then it seems best to stick to the awkward yardstick of miles per kWh, or kWh per mile.

KPH is an abomination. Kilometres are km, not K. k would be just kilo, which is a prefix! What is “P”!? Poise? That’s measure of viscosity! And hours are a small h. So I prefer not to measure speeds in kilopoise-hours. Please, km/h or MPH, if you must, but if you’re going to use the metric system, let’s not misuse it.

What makes sense is comparing $/year. If you want to do you own calculations, you would know that GE (gasoline gallon equivalent) is 33.4 kWh. If not, EPA & DOE have fueleconomy.gov website that does fuel economy calculations from your input.

“Rare Earths” help establish the Oersteds required – but the main point is the Permanent Magnet motor used is of higher efficiency than the old-school induction models used in the 1st Roadster, S, and X since there are no rotor currents, there are no rotor current losses.

The higher Flux-density such materials allow mean that the motor can be pushed harder prior to demagnitizing it which in effect ruins it.

Almost all PM motors MUST be used with a controller to limit the power going to it, lest this happen.

Sure. It’s a smaller car, with about equally aggressive streamlining and similar acceleration, so naturally the TM3 uses few kWh per mile.

“I thought I had read here the S was particularly inefficient at least compared to the bolt or maybe the leaf?”

You can unfortunately read a lot of Tesla bashing FUD from a few serial Tesla bashers here.

Here are the facts, per the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s website (link below):

The 2017 Tesla Model S AWD – 90D is rated by the EPA at 32 kWh/100 miles, vs. the 2017 Nissan Leaf at 30 kWh/100 miles. (The “P” performance versions of the Model S are less efficient… which is also expected.)

For the much heavier and much more powerful Model S, that surprisingly small difference in efficiency strongly indicates superior engineering as compared to the Leaf.

And no, it has almost nothing to do with permanent magnet motors vs. induction motors. That’s a trivial difference, and has more to do with cost than efficiency. Tesla was using induction motors because permanent magnets were quite expensive, but now that a way has been found to make those cheaper, Tesla has switched to permanent magnet motors.

The Ioniq trades away power/performance for energy efficiency. This is pretty clear if you look at the 0-60 time of 8.1 seconds, altho that still beats the 2016 Leaf SL’s wimpy performance of 10.0 seconds.

By comparison, the Bolt EV is rated at 6.4 seconds, and of course a comparison to any Tesla car would be completely unfair. 😉

The 60 kWh pack going into the Niro is the one I would expect to end up in the Ioniq as they share powertrains otherwise (and platform). The Ioniq upgraded from 28 kWh and 88 kW motor to 150 kW motor and 60 kWh would be a HUGE upgrade and make the car outstanding.

The Ioniq has a 31kwh battery, but Hyundai chooses to list the useable capacity, which is 28kwh.

Nissan lists the full capacity, so the useable capacity is likely around 36kwh.

The new leaf is disappointing in it’s efficiency, but it still looks like a vastly improved vehicle. And it will be available to purchase, whereas the waiting times for the Ioniq are so long that it’s really vapourware for most people.

I’m a fan of both, but the Leaf will make a bigger difference in terms of getting more EVs on the road.

You must really think the Bolt EV is garbage, or you wouldn’t resort to FUD and lies about the Tesla Model 3.

Sad for you, GM fanboy!

Personally, I think the Bolt EV is a pretty good BEV, aside from the uncomfortable front seats and the lack of DCFC charging as standard equipment. Too bad that GM chooses to build fewer of them than there is demand for.

The Bolt and Model 3 don’t even have the same shape to them. One is a small hatchback, while the other is a sedan. Meanwhile the Bolt and Leaf are pretty close, so I think it’s more of an apt comparison.

That being said, I can’t even stand to sit in the Bolt, so I’d be more likely to get an “inferior” Leaf. Though I won’t even be in the market again for a few years.

The only public, non-Nissan dealer CHAdeMO only fast charging stations I’ve seen in person were Blink stations installed in PA….before the CCS standard was finalized (thus the lack of CCS). Odds are even if my Bolt could have used those stations, they would have been broken because….Blink.

How many CHAdeMO only stations actually exist in the US? Has to be a very tiny number.

When CCS eventually wins out over CHAdeMO (at least in the states), I’m sure the EVSE suppliers will be happy, because then they won’t have to build every station with dual CCS/CHAdeMO plugs.

Right? I mean range is what matters when you are driving. Efficiency only matters when you are charging. Basically all it means is that the cost per mile went up by 114/112, or 1.8%. So if the old leaf cost $0.03/mile, the new one costs $0.0305/mile. Big whoop.

Like I said before in a previous post, the new Leaf is just a lipsticked Gen 1 Leaf. So the inferior efficiency ratings should really not be a surprise. Though you’d think they could at least make enough improvements to match the Gen 1’s efficiency numbers. Guess Nissan found it wasn’t worth spending the money to do that.

That being said, the Ghetto Bolt will probably sell well. Top 3 for sure this year.

The new Leaf uses the same platform as the old Leaf. It is literally a lipsticked pig. That being said, there’s nothing wrong with being a lipsticked pig in this case, as it is still superior to the naked pig in every way. Of course it’s inferior to competition outside of price. Says something about the manufacturer and their commitment when they decide to recycle an old platform instead of start with a brand new one.

GM created an all new platform for the Bolt (and also started the Gen 2 Volt from scratch versus reusing the Gen 1 platform). Tesla made an all net platform for the Model 3. But cheapo Nissan spent the least amount of money possible in bringing out the new Leaf. It’s really just a heavy refresh, not an all new vehicle.

That’s an advantage of Nissan being a pioneer in selling mass produced EVs: they can build off of the first iteration and save a ton of development money while cutting the likelihood of running into major manufacturing problems.

There are big improvements in the current LEAF with another big improvement coming soon to boost it up over 200 mile range. And Nissan is going to be delivering them in mass and for an affordable price.

I claim that is an advantage and a pretty smart move.
After 151 000 kilometers within 6 year ownership, the main thing that my Leaf MY2012 is missing is more range, faster charging and better regen and better heating.

All of those are improved in this makeover plus better performance and all of it at a lower price 6 years later.

BTW The original platform doesn’t have any flay that I know, so why not use a good thing when it’s done?

“vastly improved styling” is the definition of a cosmetic, “lipstick” improvement. So it got a face lift, so what?

40% more battery is very nice, but given the SEVEN year gap between the first leaf and this one and the dramatic progress made in the EV industry during that time, a battery with less than twice the range of the original is, yes, “lipstick”. It’s way below the industry leaders long after they already started shipping. And worse, no other efficiency improvement at a time when competitors are doing so much more – the same efficiency, just bigger. They didn’t even improve the weight ratio, just added more of the same battery that is now hopelessly uncompetitive.

“auto pilot” is basically trying to distract from the fact that they have done NOTHING to the electrical side of the car except add more of the same old technology battery. If you are buying a car for this technology, well great. But if you are buying for an EV the LEAF is the last choice anyone should consider, especially after their horribly unethical handling of the fallout from their first disaster of a battery.

Definitely. The improved styling is almost literally lipstick, while Nissan’s stubborn refusal to put any kind of battery cooling system into the car leaves (leafs? 😉 ) it still a pig underneath.

Increasing the size of the battery pack without adding any sort of cooling system at all — not even forced air like the Ioniq Electric or the i-MiEV — is like painting over the rotting timbers in your home! With increased battery size and therefore increased ability to fast-charge en route for extended range, there’s even greater need for a liquid cooling system to prevent battery overheating, and even more exposure to overheating the battery if the car is used for long trips.

If you doubt the latter point, then just read the real-world report from a driver of a late model (30 kWh) Leaf in the relatively cool UK:

Not yet, but bro1999 might have some extra EV cosmetics in his Nissan accessory handbag.
He is always willing lend to Leaf Lovers, just like himself, just about anything. He has some experience in slinging shade, and wallowing around in the muck.

Worrying about, or even talking about this efficiency number is a seriously “inside baseball” thing for us to be indulging in. Have you talked to non-plugheads about the chances they’ll buy an EV? I do this all the time, and they almost always care about [1] per-charge range, [2] car price, [3] car size/shape/utility/appearance, and [4] cost to recharge, in that order.

On the recharge cost, I tell people that compared to putting gasoline into an equivalent car, my Leaf saves me roughly 6 cents/mile on fuel cost at current (US) gasoline prices. That’s all they have to hear on the fueling cost or efficiency front.

The average mainstreamer we are (should be) trying to get into an EV doesn’t know a kWh from an artichoke. It’s like the very early days desktop computers, when nearly every intro article or book explained the difference between RAM and ROM memory. People didn’t really need to know it then, and it’s become a forgotten detail. Heck, ask people who have owned a string of ICE vehicles what “2.4 liters” as an engine metric means, and I’d guess most won’t even get close to the right answer.

Think you point out the benefit of miles/kWh, as it makes it real easy to provide a cost per mile which as you say, is something all drivers understand.
MPGe I only find useful to compare against other MPGe numbers, it really could be any other efficiency number or name.
We pay about $0.10 per kWh, so with our Bolt getting over 3miles per kWh, cost is $0.03 per mile.

“Worrying about, or even talking about this efficiency number is a seriously ‘inside baseball’ thing for us to be indulging in. Have you talked to non-plugheads about the chances they’ll buy an EV?”

Okay, but InsideEVs isn’t just a place for proselytizing to gasmobile drivers; it’s also a place for EV advocates to share info and ideas, and discuss issues.

Tesla is now ignoring the whole issue of watts and kWh in its advertising, simplifying things to just talk about range and charging time. That may be the best approach.

But as soon as someone buys an EV, then he’s going to need more info. There are a lot of posts on the still relatively new InsideEVs Forum from new EV owners who suddenly want to know all about kWh and battery pack capacity and charging rates and other sorts of technical issues.

I think the best advice here is “Begin as you mean to go on.” We shouldn’t have one set of measuring standards for people who know little about EVs, and another set of measuring standards for “inside baseball” discussions of EV technical issues. People should already know what a kilowatt-hour is from their electrical bill, and explaining the difference between energy and power is something that it would benefit the general public to be exposed to. It’s shocking that this isn’t part of a basic grade school education, and that should change. But in the meantime, if we have to patiently explain the difference between power and energy, and between a kW and a kWh, then we should take the time and effort to do so.

Giving someone the crutch of the MPGe metric isn’t going to help them in the long run. People don’t need to be spoon-fed changes, despite what some very poor managerial “advice” says; people learn new things all the time. If people learned how to use cellphones after using only land lines for decades, then they can learn a bit about the technology of EVs as electric cars become more commonplace.

Interesting that the Bolt, whose aerodynamics were (I believe) described as a “disaster” by someone from GM, has better highway efficiency than the Leaf! The Leaf is at 209 Wh/km, while the Bolt only uses 190 Wh/km. How the hell did Nissan manage that? Sure I figure it’s wider than the Bolt, but could the Leaf not even manage that low bar? Less than 200km on the highway is a pretty weak effort. Bring on the upgraded Ioniq!

The Bolt is just a better designed car. I suppose the poor hwy efficiency of the Leaf is probably due to aerodynamics, but look at the city ratings. Even there the Bolt scores better, despite lugging around a 50% larger battery.

To be honest, I’ve always considered Nissan to be a second tier car maker–a step down from Toyota, Honda, and (yes) VW, even in EVs also a step down from GM.

“How the hell did Nissan manage that? Sure I figure it’s wider than the Bolt, but could the Leaf not even manage that low bar?”

By not spending any money or efforts toward improving the efficiency of their EV powertrain in the 7 years it’s been in production, which started in Dec. 2010.

I just roll my eyes when anyone claims that the powertrains in all EVs are alike as peas in a pod, or that companies like Tesla and GM don’t have EV tech which is superior to makers of other EVs. And don’t get me started about the abysmal energy efficiency of Chinese-made EVs! *shudder*

Better engineering gives some car models an edge over others. That’s not going to change just because people start driving PEVs instead of gasmobiles.

MPGe isn’t all that accurate, so I’ll give benefit of doubt to Nissan. For example, Bolt is rated higher MPGe than SparkEV, yet all the indications are that real world result in SparkEV getting better efficiency. Mine now shows 5.4 mi/kWh (182 milers per 33.7 kWh) over 26K miles (did not reset trip meter since getting car).

However, from marketing perspective, they’ll have hard time moving Leaf if not for something extra. I suspect they will continue with free charging. With larger battery, DCFC clogging situation will get lot worse with free charging Bolts as well.

Free charging SUCKS!!!

Tesla should hurry the hell up with Tesla 3 production. It’s literally killing my time on this planet waiting needlessly for free chargers at DCFC.

I applaud Nissan for their push (along with BMW and EVGo) for charging infrastructure. If not for them, I would have nowhere to charge my Bolt along my typical routes. If that means making it free to their customers for a few years, then so be it! So thank you, Nissan (and BMW), for doing the most of any non-Tesla EV maker for charging infrastructure!

You should put on some cheap meter before your charger connection to the grid. Then you will see true picture including all the vampire losses, pre-heating, etc, not just the optimistic nonsense that is shown on car dashboards.

182 miles per 33.7 kWh to get to 119 MPGe would mean 65% efficiency. L1 was about 80%, L2 over 85%. Wall to wheels, I’m effectively getting 146 MPGe (or 155 MPGe), and that’s over 26K miles average.

But that doesn’t matter since my main point was that SparkEV is getting more mi/kWh than Bolt in the real world, yet MPGe is higher for Bolt.

As for free charging, the whole reason why I want to get off non-Tesla EV train is due to free chargers. If there’s no Tesla, I’d be getting off EV altogether. Free charging did far more harm than good.

Besides, much of CCS I use came thanks to CA lawsuit against NRG for their Enron shenanigans, not due to free charging. All free charging did was to hurt EV.

I guess I don’t see the efficiency as being an issue. As long as the car delivers on the range, the efficiency isn’t that big of a deal because it beats any gasoline powered vehicle by a longshot. Hopefully most of the people buying this car will be average people, not EV enthusiasts. As such, 112 mpge is going to seem like a lot to them!

Yes, sorta.
When making your own power there’s a difference between powering a Tesla “S” and an Ioniq.
Not a deal breaker, but a similar decision between an energy star appliance (remember the good old days) and a regular one.
After two Leafs, we’ll be looking to buy a ’19 Leaf.

“Spec says the Leaf goes 100 miles on 30kWh so it stands to reason that it would go 133 miles on 40kWh. Why then does it have a 151 mile range? Am I missing something?”

You’re missing a great deal, if you think that EV range is a simple function of battery capacity.

Just a couple of the more obvious ones: You’re missing the difference between full battery capacity and usable capacity, and you’re missing the difference in a new body style and therefore a different drag coefficient.

Comparing the “efficiency” of the cramped and non-utilitarian Model 3 to an SUV is ridiculously absurd. And the difference between the Bolt and the Leaf is an insignificant 6%. MPGe is a useless metric – miles per kWhr is what everyone should be using – that’s the metric that’s been around for 80 years and is straightforward, easily understood, and useful. With electric cars, fuel efficiencies are mostly irrelevant – a 1970’s issue.

With free charging, it will spike sales. But let’s see what happens after people realize clogged chargers mean they really cannot use their free charging, which seem to be happening in San Diego thanks to free charging Bolts.

This article seems unnecessarily negative. The car meets or beats estimated mileage, it is low cost (who cares really if it is the world record holder or not), and it costs less than the old Leaf, at least in Inflated Dollars.

Nissan could do worse than they have done. Now if reliability is pretty good, that’s another feather in their cap.

Here is the Leaf’s timeline in terms of range.
2011-2013: 73 miles
2014-2016: 84 miles (24 KWh battery)
2016-2017: 107 miles (30 KWh battery)
Note: In 2016 when the 30 KWh battery was introduced, the base S trim still had 24 KWh which was later called as S24 and S30.
2018: 151 miles

Steady progress.
2019: 151 miles (40 KWh) and 220 miles (60 KWh) expected.
I wish Nissan launches 80 KWh battery in 2020 and AWD version in 2021. They have to continuously keep up with progress, otherwise Model-3 will suck all the market. Besides other automakers are gradually getting in and also the BEVs may face competition from PHVs which are slowly moving from 10 mile range to 30 mile range.

Not impressed at all. 100 mpge on the highway, lower than the bolts 110 and way lower than the model 3s 123. The new leaf even has worse efficiency on the highway than the old leaf. The old leaf quickly hits 400wh/mile on the highway at 75mph (to drive 75 the speedometer on the leaf must show 84mph, that’s how much it is off) meaning this car will have a 100 mile range on the highway at 75 while the model 3 probably will have a consumption of about 290 wh/mile at the same speed and the base model will have a 190 mile range. Almost twice the distance!

Are you sure there isn’t just something wrong with the Leaf you were driving? I haven’t noticed that I was going severely slower than the flow of traffic when I’m going 65 mph on the freeway. Sure, slower than the fast lane, but I’m certainly not plugging along at 55 mph, which can actually be scary slow as everyone weaves around you.

MPGe is not a very reasonable measure for comparing with ICE, as it assumes the electricity generated with 100% efficiency.

Given that most of electricity in the world is still generated from fossil fuel with 35-40% efficiency (combined with transmission loss, etc), 120mpge is actually only 42-48mpge, not that different to hybrid cars, and much worse in a cold day when you turn the heater on.

This seems like a FUD post to me. As far as I know MPG doesn’t take into account well-to-wheels efficiency either. It’s based on how much you get on what’s in the tank. The efficiency of converting oil to gasoline is painfully low–certainly no better than fossil fuel power plants.

It’s not surprising that even the newest Leaf is less energy efficient than the smaller Bolt EV.

As far as being that much less efficient than the Tesla Model 3… well, is it really fair to compare a car which hasn’t had a significant tech improvement in 7 years with Tesla’s newest cutting-edge BEV?

Heck yeah, it’s totally fair to underscore how Nissan hasn’t made any real attempt to update its EV tech!

Since different auto makers measure Cd differently, we’d need to see comparison tests by some independent tester. If Car and Driver does wind tunnel tests, then I’d certainly take their numbers over those from the auto maker.

Just wondering how the Bolt gets a better efficiency rating than the new Leaf. The Bolt is heavier, less aerodynamic and has more power. That to me does not make sense. But than the MPGe makes no sense either.